To check your business credit score for free, use Dun & Bradstreet’s Credit Insights tool for a limited look at your PAYDEX and related scores, search Experian’s small business site to see whether a file exists on your company, and sign up with a third-party aggregator like Nav for summary-level grades from all three major bureaus. Equifax does not offer a free business credit report directly to owners. No federal law entitles you to a free annual business credit report the way the Fair Credit Reporting Act does for personal credit, so the free view is partial by design.
What Each Bureau Offers for Free
The three major commercial bureaus — Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax — collect data independently and each uses its own scoring methods. Your company might look strong at one and mediocre at another, which is why it pays to check all three even when only some of that access is free.
Dun & Bradstreet
D&B offers a free tool called D&B Credit Insights. It shows risk-range indicators for four of your scores and ratings, including the PAYDEX score, along with a summary of legal events, business operations, and payment history. The limitation worth knowing up front: after the first 14 days, the free version only shows directional changes — whether scores went up or down — rather than the actual numbers.1Dun & Bradstreet. Business Credit Monitoring For ongoing visibility into the exact scores, you’d need a paid plan.
You can also use D&B’s lookup tool to find your company’s record by name and location without a D-U-N-S number.2Dun & Bradstreet. Company D-U-N-S Lookup Tool
Experian
Experian lets you search its small business site to check whether your company has a credit file and view some basic information. Full reports with detailed trade payment data and the actual Intelliscore Plus number require purchase.
Equifax
Equifax does not offer a free business credit report to business owners. To see what Equifax has on your company you’ll need to buy a report directly or go through a third-party service that packages Equifax data.
Free Summary Reports Through Aggregators
Third-party platforms like Nav pull summary-level credit grades from all three bureaus and translate your scores into letter grades, with key risk factors highlighted. These summaries won’t show every trade line or every public record, but they give you a single-screen health check across D&B, Experian, and Equifax without paying for three separate reports. If something looks off in the summary, that’s your signal to pay for the detailed report from whichever bureau is flagging the issue.
What You Need Before You Check
Each bureau has to match your request to the right file, and small inconsistencies can either pull up the wrong company or spawn a duplicate record that fragments your credit history. Have these ready:
- Your legal business name exactly as it appears on your Articles of Incorporation or Organization. Even “LLC” versus “L.L.C.” can misroute the lookup.
- Your EIN, which the bureaus use as a primary identifier.
- The physical business address on file with your state registration.
- Your D-U-N-S number if you have one. If you don’t, you can request it free through D&B’s website. Standard processing takes up to 30 business days, and paid expedited processing delivers it in about eight business days.3Dun & Bradstreet. Get a D-U-N-S Number
Bureaus also verify that whoever’s requesting the report is authorized to see it, so expect to supply personal identification such as a driver’s license number or home address to confirm you’re an owner or officer.4Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1022.123 – Appropriate Proof of Identity
What the Free View Actually Shows You
Free tools give you enough to answer three practical questions: does a file exist on my business, is anything obviously wrong, and are the scores trending up or down. That’s useful for routine monitoring and for catching problems early.
What free access generally will not show you is the exact numeric score on an ongoing basis, every trade line reported by every vendor, and the full catalog of public records. Those live in the paid reports. If you’re preparing for a loan application or a vendor is deciding how much trade credit to extend, the free summary is a starting point, not the finish line.
A few of the scores worth watching for in whatever view you get:
- The PAYDEX score from D&B runs 1 to 100 and measures payment promptness. A score of 80 means paying within agreed terms; above 80 means paying early. The 80–100 band is low risk, 50–79 moderate, and 0–49 high risk. The score is dollar-weighted, so a large invoice paid late hurts more than a small one.5Dun & Bradstreet. Business Credit Scores and Ratings6Dun & Bradstreet. Frequently Asked Questions
- Experian’s Intelliscore Plus also runs 1 to 100, with 1 being the highest risk and 100 the lowest. It predicts the likelihood of serious delinquency or bankruptcy within 12 months.7Experian. Intelliscore Plus Performance Table
- Equifax produces several specialized scores rather than one headline number, including a Payment Index (1–100, with 90+ meaning paid as agreed), a Business Delinquency Score, and a Business Failure Risk Score. If a lender tells you they pulled your Equifax business credit, ask which specific score they used.
One score you won’t see on any bureau’s free or paid report is the FICO Small Business Scoring Service (SBSS) score, which blends personal and business credit with loan application data. The SBA historically required a minimum SBSS of 165 for 7(a) small loans of $350,000 or less, and discontinued that requirement in March 2026. Many lenders are expected to keep using the score as an internal screen, so it’s worth asking your lender whether they still do.
Checking for Errors Is the Reason to Look
Business credit reports have no equivalent of the Fair Credit Reporting Act protections that cover personal credit. The FCRA generally applies only to consumer credit transactions, not commercial ones.8Consumer Compliance Outlook (Federal Reserve). Consumer Compliance Requirements for Commercial Products and Services The bureaus aren’t legally required to give you free reports, investigate disputes within 30 days, or delete unverifiable information the way they must for consumer files.
Each bureau does maintain a dispute process on its own terms. The general approach:
- Pull your report and identify exactly what’s wrong — a payment reported late that you paid on time, a lien that’s been satisfied but still shows open, a trade line that belongs to a different company.
- Gather documentation: canceled checks, lien release letters, or anything that contradicts the reported information.
- Submit the dispute through the bureau’s website, and contact the vendor or lender that reported the information so the correction happens at the source.
- Follow up. Without FCRA deadlines forcing the bureau’s hand, disputes can take longer than you’d expect. Document everything.
Errors on business credit reports are more common than most owners realize, partly because there’s less regulatory pressure to get them right. Checking the free view regularly gives you time to catch and fix problems before they stall a loan closing.
A few items that frequently need correcting: a wrong industry classification code, which skews how your payment performance compares to peers; a tax lien that’s been resolved but still shows open; and company registration details like address or employee count that are simply out of date.
If There’s No File on Your Business Yet
If you check and find nothing, that’s normal for newer companies. The SBA recommends getting a D-U-N-S number as one of the first steps to establish business credit, and the request is free.9U.S. Small Business Administration. Establish Business Credit3Dun & Bradstreet. Get a D-U-N-S Number
From there, open trade accounts with vendors offering net-30 terms and confirm up front that the vendor reports payments to the bureaus. An account that doesn’t report does nothing for your file, no matter how reliably you pay. A business credit card helps too, since most major issuers report to at least one commercial bureau. Keep utilization low and pay in full. A few trade accounts plus a card can produce a meaningful payment history within six to twelve months.
One more thing to keep in mind while the business file is thin: lenders evaluating a new company will almost certainly pull the owner’s personal credit as well. Strong personal scores give your business a bridge while its own credit history develops.